Not knowing your whole life VS Knowing at an early age +/-s

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I've noticed that I have more anxiety around certain groups of people, but for me it's the opposite problem. Like as an example, when I'm around black people who seem to behave in sort of stereotypical ways, my anxiety level goes up. But the reason for it has nothing at all to do with any preconception that the race stereotypes are accurate... My problem is that I get more anxious about the idea that I might say something wrong and that they might misinterpret what I've said as having been a racist remark.

There are two specific problems going on here. First is that I have enough problems navigating my own subcultures (primarily corporate IT) and so I know that the expected behaviors in this other group are different and that I'm unfamiliar with what is okay or not okay in their group. Secondly I gather that what's okay and not okay for them is different than what's okay or not okay for me because they know that I'm not normally a part of their subculture.

So the whole thing ends up with me being very nervous about being around them -- and then I worry even more because I'm afraid that they'll interpret my anxiety the wrong way... that they'll interpret my anxiety as being a product of racism, which is sooooo far from what's actually happening.

That is definitly a problem of mine. I never know when something I might say could be taken the wrong way. I was accused of being racist at several points in my life, and I am probably the most accepting person I know. Just recently I was accused of being racist for saying that, given my interests, I should have been Japanese. I don't get how that could be interpretted that way, it doesn't make any sense. Maybe the guy was being sarcastic? I don't know.

That is SO NT.

No really, this happens to a lot of people. And yes, it's sort of a "racism"-lite, though it's not hate based. Just lack of understanding and exposure based. *shrug*

Only reason I said it is because I would have more exposure over in Japan to the majority of the things I am interested, as a lot of them have to do with Japanese culture. Although if I were born Japanese I wouldn't have the same appreciation for the culture. And what I really ment by I should have been Japanese, is that someday I would like to be a Japanese citizen, assuming healthcare is as good as Canada's.

Sorry, didn't mean that part was the "racism"-lite. Yeah, they probably just didn't know what you were getting at. *shrug* How could that happen? Because your above explanation isn't the only reasonable interpretation of your words and/or they were hypersentive to seeing racism or who knows what.

EDIT: BTW I hit Quote on the wrong post. I was intending to quote ike.

I did that the other day and then after I posted it, I realized that not only had I quoted the wrong message, it was in the wrong thread. It was around 6am and I was really tired... long story... bunch of stuff going on having to do with us prepping to move back to TX where my kids are.

This isn't a numbers game, Dwight. As someone once said, statistics are people without tears.

I take anti-semitism very seriously, just as I take any form of hatred seriously. Despite the fact that we are a tiny minority, people have been tried to wipe us out several times, and it always started with words. Words are very, very powerful. You look at the Native American genocide, or the Rwandan genocide, or the lynching of African Americans, and it was fearful, hateful, dehumanizing words that began the process. All hatred and violence starts with dehumanization. It's one of the most powerful and destructive forces on earth. Even if a person's anti-semitic, racist, or homophobic rhetoric inspires just one person to kill one other person, that's enough for me to condemn it unconditionally and to have no respect for people who indulge in it.

Being a tiny minority of actual human beings (rather than percentage points), we Jews really don't need any more anti-semitism. Historically, it has tended to lessen our numbers--meaning that actual people suffer and die.

I was going to post my opinion on racism and how it spreads, but that seems a little too far off topic, and not a subject I enjoy (I hate anything to do with racism, as it is wrong and perverse in every way possible).

Anyways, my diagnosis would not have been able to help me earlier, as I was not willing to learn what that ment for me, instead I just went on living life like I thought I should, stumbling through every day as if I didn't know enough to be able to do anything socially. Once I started to research the diagnosis a bit, because I was curious, I found this place, I learned about how it affected me, and was finally able to accept it, and have been slowly learning who I am in that sense.

Who needs anti-semitism when we're being racketed from north and south by other semites

My highlights.

As for the rest of your post, please go back and reread mine.